Western Digital TV Live Hub Review

For most people their TV is the center of entertainment in the living room.  You watch cable television on it, you play your video game consoles on it and you watch DVD and Blu-ray movies on it.  We all know there are devices for that, but what about all of the media you have on your PC?  All the videos you have taken, shows you have downloaded and even the photos you have.  No one wants to sit around a small computer screen and watch these.  This is where the Western Digital TV Live Hub comes in.  It is a HD media player that supports pretty much any file type and has a 1TB hard drive for all of your media.  Let’s take a look an see what Western Digital has brought to the table in the HD media player market!

Special thanks to Western Digital for providing us with the TV Live Hub to review.

Specifications
File Formats Supported
Video – AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9, FLV (h.264)
Photo – JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Audio – MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
Playlist – PLS, M3U, WPL
Subtitle – SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI

Note
MPEG2 MP@HL up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
MPEG4.2 ASP@L5 up to 1280x720p30 resolution and no support for global motion compensation.
WMV9/VC-1 MP@HL up to 1280x720p60 or 1920x1080p24 resolution. VC-1 AP@L3 up to 1920x1080i30, 1920x1080p24 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
H.264 BP@L3 up to 720x480p30 or 720x576p25 resolution.
H.264 MP@L4.1 and HP@4.1 up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30, or 1280x720p60 resolution.
An audio receiver is required for multi-channel surround sound digital output.
Compressed RGB JPEG formats only and progressive JPEG up to 2048×2048.
Single layer TIFF files only.
Uncompressed BMP only.

File Formats Not Supported
Does not support protected premium content such as movies or music from the iTunes Store, Cinema Now, Movielink, Amazon Unbox, and Vongo

Physical Specifications
Capacity: 1 TB
Interface: Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0, HDMI, Composite A/V, Component video, Optical audio

Physical Dimensions
English
Height 1.25 Inches
Depth 7.80 Inches
Width 6.10 Inches
Weight 1.22 Pounds

Metric
Height 31.75 mm
Depth 198 mm
Width 154.00 mm
Weight 0.55 kg

Environmental Specifications
Temperature (English)
Operating 41° F to 95° F
Non-operating -40° F to 149° F

Temperature (Metric)
Operating 5° C to 35° C
Non-operating -40° C to 65° C

Electrical Specifications
Current Requirements
Power Dissipation
AC Input Voltage 100-240 VAC
AC Input Frequency 50-60 Hz

Packaging
The WD TV Live Hub comes in a nice retail package.  On the front there is a photo of the unit and one of the interface, which looks much more refined than other HD media players that we have looked at.  On the back there is some information about the unit itself.  On the side there is a list of supported formats, which we do have listed above.

Western Digital TV Live Hub Western Digital TV Live Hub Western Digital TV Live Hub

Opening up the box everything is nicely packed inside.  Getting it all out you have the WD TV Live Hub, remote, power adapter, batteries and a user’s guide.  On thing that was missing was any sort of video cables.

Western Digital TV Live Hub Western Digital TV Live Hub

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